Now, don't hold your breath because these dates have been wrong plenty of times before, just thought I'd let you all know in case anyone was champing at the bit to pick up this exclusive box of rehashes.

I noticed a variation on the Hoth battle pack. General Veers, in the first pack I bought, has an extra black stripe of paint on his left hip joint when compared to the first release with the At-At. Matt C and I were hanging out yesterday and found more Hoth packs, but these Veers' did not have the extra black paint. Has anyone else noticed? Anyone know anything about this?

SilverZ

I found the Hoth set tonight, at last, and I have to say that the 24.99 they're charging for it was tought to swallow. This is one big pack of disappointment. I hope this doesn't shoot down our chances of a legitimate resculpt of Veers in the future.

I guess I should be positive and thank them for making it so ****** I don't need to buy an opener.

I went to TRU this morning and found the "Attack on Hoth" Battle Pack. The following is my assessment of this situation:

The first thing I noticed as I approached the SW section was the fact that there were 2 separate labels and prices for Battle Packs. On the left we had the Obi Wan with clone armor battle pack that everyone else has, with a tag under it that says $19.99. Then, to the right, is the "Attack on Hoth" battle pack which is exclusive to TRU, which has it's own tag on the shelf, $24.99. Right off the bat, we're being held hostage for a ransom of $5, just because TRU is the only place where you can buy these.

So, I picked one up and starting looking at it and analyzing it and thinking. In this set we have:

1. General Veers - This was a crappy figure 9 years ago and is an even crappier one today with a crappy sculpt, crappy likeness, crappy articulation. This thing made a poor pack in nine years ago. Now it's an exclusive to TRU.

2. Probot - Kinda cool but I had this 9 years ago. Nobody needs this. Unless you just started collecting with Prequels maybe, I dunno.

3. 2 1996 POTF2 snowies - Decent figure, crappy articulation, good likeness, too tall in sculpt. Originally, I was going to buy this battle pack to get some more of these, because I was going to use the head to make some Mygeeto clones to go with Bacara, and gun down Ki Adi on my dresser. Then I realized that the head is sculpted right onto the torso, making the job too difficult. Enter the SAGA snowie...

4. 1 Saga snowie - Finally something I actually want. And why? To pop the head off and put it on a ROTS SA clone and customize a Mygeeto troop. He's got the E-Web that came with the SAGA snowie. I've already got enough of that.

Bottom line - This thing is a throwback of mostly 9 year old stuff that we don't really need anyhow.

And really, this thing is an embarrassment for Hasbro. They resurrected stuff that's just about a decade old, and made it so that we can only buy it at one store for an inflated rip off price.

I see no reason why these shouldn't wind up on the clearance racks. Do you know what this thing really cost? There's the $24.99 sticker, then there's the real price. With tax, it's $27 and change, and with the gas it's $30. Gas and tax aren't Hasbro's fault, but this thing costs $30 anyway.

PASS.

I'll go collect a few more SAGA snowies from ebay to round out my Mygeeto squad.

I saw a few of these on the shelves at TRU the other day as well, and I passed. Although I don't have the Probot, I'm not going to buy this whole (crappy) set just to get that. I agree, the figures look quite dated overall, and hopefully we'll see some resculpts in the future (a nice SA Snowtrooper in the Hoth wave for 2006 would be great). It would be a neat set if the figures were more updated I suppose, but it didn't look too great to me.

The first thing I noticed as I approached the SW section was the fact that there were 2 separate labels and prices for Battle Packs. On the left we had the Obi Wan with clone armor battle pack that everyone else has, with a tag under it that says $19.99. Then, to the right, is the "Attack on Hoth" battle pack which is exclusive to TRU, which has it's own tag on the shelf, $24.99. Right off the bat, we're being held hostage for a ransom of $5, just because TRU is the only place where you can buy these.

Even though it doesn't apply to this pack directly, I noticed the same thing at the local K-Mart earlier this week. The "regular" Battle Packs (they had the Sith vs. Jedi and Jedi vs. Separatists) were marked at 21.99 and the "exclusive" BPs (one JTA and 3 Throne Rooms) were marked at 24.99. If TRU is following the same pricing structure, I can only imagine how much Target will crank up the price of the Clone 5 pack when it finally hits shelves.

SilverZ

If TRU is following the same pricing structure, I can only imagine how much Target will crank up the price of the Clone 5 pack when it finally hits shelves.

It's interesting that the opposite seems to be in effect at the moment. Target has the standard packs available for 24.99, and the Clone pack is in their system at 19.99. Being forever a pessimist, I feel this is simply an oversight, and believe that they can and will bump them to 29.99.

I'd love to be wrong but the powers that be at Target have still blacker hearts than I.